Father Eugene Edward Kalinski, passed over into Eternal Life, comforted by the Holy Sacraments of the Church and Apostolic Blessing on March 12, 2012. He was born in Chicago on May 10, 1934, the second of three sons of Michael and Arlene (Doyle) Kalinski. Following graduation from St. Vitus elementary school, he was given a scholarship to St. Procopius College Academy in Lisle, IL and went on to study in St. Procopius College (now Benedictine University), where he excelled athletically in baseball, basketball and tennis, graduating in 1956 with a bachelor's degree in philosophy.

In June, 1954 he entered the novitiate of the Benedictine Abbey at Lisle and was professed a monk on June 26, 1955, making his solemn vows three years later.

In 1955 he volunteered to go to China as a missionary and set out to studying Chinese, his Abbot planning to send him to the Portuguese overseas province of Macao to complete his theological studies. By 1958 the notion of founding a monastery on mainland China was entirely unrealistic.
In 1959 he was sent to complete
his theological studies in Rome at the Pontifical Lateran University, with residence in the Collegio Teutonico di Santa Maria in Vatican City. He was ordained a subdeacon and a deacon in the Patriarchal Archbasilica of St. John Lateran in the spring of 1960 by Cardinal Luigi Traglia, Pope John XXIII's Pro-Vicar of Rome. Cardinal Traglia ordained him to the sacred priesthood on July 3, 1960 in the Abbey Church of St. Anselm on the Aventine. The following day he offered his first Mass at the Tomb of St. Peter in the Vatican Patriarchal Archbasilica of St. Peter. In the course of his years in the Abbey at Lisle, he fulfilled the tasks of assistant procurator and guestmaster and assistant athletic director in the College and instructor in Benet Academy for Boys.

He was a co-founder of Claremont Priory in Cedarburg in 1964 and of the Community of Our Lady Monastery, Oakwood Point, Oshkosh, in 1968, a monastic foundation within the jurisdiction of the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay. Here he worked as procurator (business manager and treasurer) of the Community, as well as groundskeeper until 2006, when he was relieved of these duties owing to failing health. In July 2008 he entered the assisted care unit of Creekview, Evergreen Retirement Center.

In 2001 he was awarded the Primatial Gold Medal of Merit by Cardinal Jozef Glemp, Primate of Poland.

Visitation will take place in the
monastery chapel on Oakwood Point from 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, March 14, 2012 until the time Holy Mass will be celebrated at 5:30 p.m.

On Thursday, March 15, 2012, his remains will be transported to the Chapel of the Trinity, Carmel of St. Joseph, River and Central Roads, Des Plaines, Illinois. Friday, March 16, at 10:00 a.m. a Mass of Christian Burial will be offered at the Chapel of the Trinity, Carmel of St. Joseph, River and Central Roads, Des Plaines, Illinois, following which he will be entombed in the Garden Mausoleum of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, All Saints Cemetery, River Road, Des Plaines.

He is survived by his monastic brothers and by many associates and friends of the Community of Our Lady, Oshkosh.